Cycle 4 Stage 2 (Budget Proposal) Announcement
The international Suzaku project has completed the evaluation of proposals for the guest observer (GO) time during Cycle 4, which, for US PIs, were solicited as part of an element of ROSES 2008.
A list of accepted targets is available on the web.
US-based investigators with a successful Cycle 4 Stage 1 proposal are eligible to receive financial support from NASA. An investigator must be affiliated with a US institution and must expect to remain so during the grant period to be eligible. The Suzaku Cycle 4 Guest Observer program is not soliciting new proposals; any unsolicited submission will not be considered.
As a result of the last Senior Review, the funding allocated for US Suzaku Guest Investigations during Cycle 4 has been significantly reduced from that available in prior observing cycles. Due to the severe funding limitations, in consultation with the Suzaku Users Group, it is our intent to fund only those accepted proposals with at least one priority A or B target; we do not intend to fund proposals with only priority C targets. Note that, by definition, all accepted targets for Key Project and Long Proposal proposals are at priority A.
Only one budget per accepted observing proposal is permitted; the PIs must therefore submit a budget including the required support for all of the eligible co-Is
Note also that budget proposals for TOO targets MUST be submitted at this time, NOT after the observation has been carried out.
In formulating a realistic funding request, proposers should take into account factors such as the scope, complexity, and relative ranking of the investigation, including any modification (e.g., deletion of targets, reduction in observing time) to the original proposal. Additional factors that will be considered include the possible presence of other proposals for which a particular PI or Co-I is requesting funding under this solicitation, and other sources of support relevant to this request
We anticipate that a total of approximately $500 K will be available for Cycle 4 guest observers, down from $1.2 M for Cycle 3. We plan to adopt a system of determining the nominal amount of support in direct costs based on the target priority and the total exposure time, while giving higher weights to Key Program and Long Program proposals with awards up to approximately 50% above the nominal level. Strong justifications are required for requests exceeding the nominal level. For reference, the nominal award to a US PI on a priority A proposal with 80 ksec of exposure time is expected to be of order $9,500 plus overhead in Cycle 4, scaling down from the Cycle 3 funding levels. In Cycle 3, Priority B proposals were awarded 80% of what comparable Priority A proposals received. Those with a total exposure time twice (half) as long received 30% more (less).
For Stage 2, a review team comprised of a subset of the Stage 1 Panel will be convened by NASA to review the cost proposals against factor (3) of the evaluation criteria as specified in Section C.2 of the 2008 NASA Office of Space Science Guidebook for Proposers. Based upon the results of the above reviews, the Suzaku Program Scientist will recommend a set of proposals to the Director, Astrophysics Division, Science Mission Directorate, for final selection.
The budget must be submitted through the NASA NSPIRES system, by an official authorized to legally bind your institution, and should be accompanied by an NSPIRES cover page for the proposal. Your original proposal document should also be attached to this proposal record as a single PDF file. You must not make any changes to this document, even to correct minor typographical errors. Budgets should be received in the NSPIRES system by May 22, 2009. Further details of the submission process is available here. If you have any technical questions about using NSPIRES, please contact the NSPIRES Help Desk on (202) 479-9376, or by email at nspires-help@nasaprs.com.
We expect to complete the Stage 2 Review by 2009 late July, at which time you will be informed of the final recommended funding level for your proposal(s). Funding for investigations will be awarded after the associated observations have been performed.
Any questions about this process may be directed to the Suzaku Guest Observer Facility, except for technical questions about NSPIRES, as indicated above.
If you have any questions concerning Suzaku, visit the Feedback form.